So many layers of the deep shadow side of America is being illuminated very much including the misogyny that has long been so pervasive in American patriarchal culture. Nothing can change until it is seen. Bless Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a courageous voice of truth and integrity so vitally needed! — Molly
We bring you Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s full address from the floor of the House when she excoriated her Republican colleague, Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida, after he verbally attacked her earlier in the week on the steps of the Capitol and used a sexist slur overheard by a reporter, calling her a “fucking bitch,” then issued a non-apology from the House floor. “My mother got to see Mr. Yoho’s disrespect on the floor of this House towards me on television,” she says, “and I am here because I have to show my parents that I am their daughter and that they did not raise me to accept abuse from men.”
“President Trump is desperate,” says world-renowned dissident Professor Noam Chomsky in an extended interview that begins with President Trump’s vow to send a “surge” of federal agents into major Democrat-run cities across the United States. “His entire attention is this one issue on his mind: that’s the election. He has to cover up for the fact he is personally responsible for killing tens of thousands of Americans. It’s impossible to conceal that for much longer.”
Again and again and again it is illuminated why I have railed against the patriarchal neoliberal predatory capitlalism and its ideology of domination. Noam Chomsky speaks to the horrors of our deadly economic system and its responsibility for unfathomable suffering, poverty, and death — and even more so now in the age of the Coronavirus. — Molly
As millions of people in the U.S. lose work and face eviction due to the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, the 1% have seen a massive increase to their wealth, with Amazon founder and world’s richest person Jeff Bezos recently adding an estimated $13 billion to his net worth in a single day. World-renowned political dissident Noam Chomsky says the corporate windfall is yet more evidence that the U.S. is run “essentially by the corporate sector” for its own profits. “They’re just running wild.”
*****
The U.S. is in the throes of an unprecedented economic, political and public health crisis — but billionaires have been reporting record-breaking profits since COVID-19 hit in March. "It is a country run essentially by the corporate sector," says Noam Chomsky. "They are running on all stops to try to maintain what they've succeeded in largely getting through the neoliberal period the last four years: enormous concentration of wealth." Chomsky adds that this is an extraordinary historical moment unlike any other, distinct from early 20th-century fascist regimes. "The fascist systems were based on the principle that the powerful state under the leadership of the ruling party and leader should basically control everything … including the business community." In this sense, Chomsky argues, Trump is not a fascist. "We are almost the opposite. It is the business community controlling the government," he says. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21Nh3qJTjqA
History shines a light on earlier periods of authoritarianism and their connection to the present, making it more difficult to assume that fascism is merely a relic of the past. Memories of terror are not only present in the rise of white supremacist demonstrations of hate and bigotry that have taken place in a number of cities. They are also present in Trump’s waging a culture war against civil disobedience, admonishing NASCAR for banning the Confederate flag at all events and properties, and attacking NASCAR’s only Black driver Bubba Wallace for falsely reporting a hate crime, which he personally did not report.
Echoes of a poisonous past are also present in the current staffing in the White House, which is home to white supremacists such as Stephen Miller, who is a high level adviser to Trump and is viewed by many as the architect of his draconian immigration policies. Miller’s white supremacist views were on public display when more than 900 of Miller’s emails were leaked by former Breitbart editor Katie McHugh. Among the trove of emails, Miller commented on and provided reference to white nationalist websites such as VDARE and celebrated the racist novel, “The Camp of the Saints.”
According to Jared Holt, an investigative reporter at Right Wing Watch, he “also reportedly espoused conspiracy theories about immigration, backed racist immigration policies introduced by President Calvin Coolidge that were praised by Adolf Hitler, and deployed slang popular in white nationalist circles to reference immigration.” Judd Legum argues that Miller also “obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage,” a view that may have later shaped Trump’s doubling down on protecting Confederate monuments.
In spite of a barrage of calls from a number of politicians calling for Miller’s removal from the White House, Trump held firm reinforcing the widely accepted notion that Trump is a white nationalist entirely comfortable with white supremacist ideology. Since Trump waged a presidential campaign using the language of white nationalism, it is not surprising that he brought such extremists views into the White House.
Of course, removing Miller would not change much. Miller is not the main white supremacist in the Trump administration. Nor can his presence hide the fact that white supremacy has been a staple of the Republican Party for decades, evident in the history of and contemporary presence of high profile Republican politicians such as Strom Thurman, Jeff Sessions, former representative Steve King, Tom Tancredo, and Dana Rohrabacher. Moreover, the long legacy of white supremacy in the United States should not undercut the distinctiveness of Donald Trump’s white supremacist views which he wears like a badge of honor while escalating and normalizing white supremacist sensibilities, practices, and policies unlike any president in modern times. His scapegoating of minorities and demonization of politicians, athletes, and other critics of color reflects more than a divide-and-rule strategy, it is an updated strategy for mainstreaming the death-haunted elements of fascism.
Fascism has deep roots in American history and its nativist legacy and anti-intellectualism have always incorporated notions of racial cleansing, the dehumanization of other groups, and an embrace of white nationalism and supremacy. This legacy lives on in different forms in Trump’s view of America. How else to explain not onlyTrump’s embrace of birtherism, racist anti-immigration policies, his public support for right-wing groups marching on state capitals protesting COVID-19 restrictions, and his appropriation of the early 20th century nativist and pro-fascist slogan “America First”?
More recently, he used the vast reach of his social media platforms to retweet a video to his millions of followers in which a man at a retirement community riding in a golf cart bearing “Trump 2020” and “American First” signs yells the racist phrase “white power!” at a group of counter protesters. Michael D. Shear writing in theWashington Poststates that while Trump later deleted the video, “he did not condemn the ‘white power’ statement or specifically disavow the sentiment expressed by his supporters.” A few days later, as if he wanted to reinforce for his base his obsession with violence, white supremacist brutality, and his deep disdain for the widespread protests over racial violence and police violence he retweeted a video of a white man and woman brandishing a semi-automatic rifle and a handgun at peaceful black protesters in St. Louis.
What Trump relentlessly affirms whenever he addresses matters of race reinforces James Baldwin’s argument that “White is a metaphor for power.” How else to explain Trump’s comment that “people love” the Confederate battle flag, and that it has a place in American society because it’s about freedom of speech, as if its legacy as a symbol of slavery and the fact that it is a racist, painful and hurtful symbol to Black Americans did not matter. Trump does not simply deny a deep seated and residual racism in America, he embraces it as a national ideal.
Defeating Trump in November must be our top priority and something we’re united in fighting for as though our lives depend on it — because they do. What's at stake is a livable planet. The eyes of the children of all the species are watching. — Molly
The US will officially exit the Paris accord one day after the 2020 US election and architects of that deal say the stakes could not be higher
It was a balmy June day in 2017 whenDonald Trumptook to the lectern in the White House Rose Garden to announce the US withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, the only comprehensive global pact to tackle the spiraling crisis.
Todd Stern, who was the US’s chief negotiator when the deal was sealed in Paris in 2015, forced himself to watch the speech.
“I found it sickening, it was mendacious from start to finish,” said Stern. “I was furious … because here we have this really important thing and here’s this joker who doesn’t understand anything he’s talking about. It was a fraud.”
The terms of the accord mean no country can leave before November this year, so due to a quirk of timing, theUS will officially exit the Paris deal on 4 November– 100 days from now and just one day after the 2020 presidential election.
The completion of Stern’s misery, and possibly any realistic hopes of averting disastrous climate change, rests heavily upon the outcome of the election, which will pit Trump against former vice-presidentJoe Biden, who has vowed to rejoin the climate agreement.
The lifetime ofthe Paris agreement, signed in a wave of optimism in 2015, has seen the five hottest years everrecordedon Earth, unprecedented wildfires torching towns fromCaliforniatoAustralia, record heatwaves bakingEuropeandIndiaand temperatures briefly burstingbeyond100F (38C) in the Arctic.
These sorts of impacts could be a mere appetizer, scientists warn, given they have been fueled by levels of global heating that are on track to triple, or worse, by the end of the century without drastic remedial action. The faltering global effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions and head off further calamity hinges, in significant part, on whether the US decides to re-enter the fray.
“The choice of Biden or Trump in the White House is huge, not just for the US but for the world generally to deal with climate change,” said Stern. “If Biden wins, November 4 is a blip, like a bad dream is over. If Trump wins, he seals the deal. The US becomes a non-player and the goals of Paris become very, very difficult. Without the US in the long term, they certainly aren’t realistic.”
In 1963, James Baldwin spoke about federally-backed urban renewal programs, describing the efforts as "negro removal" programs. "That is what it means," said Baldwin. "And the federal government is an accomplice to this fact." That same year, four little girls — Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Carol Denise McNair — were brutally murdered in Birmingham, Alabama, in a violent white supremacist terrorist attack, now known as the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Princeton professor Eddie Glaude says that there are still many lessons to learn from James Baldwin's words from that time. "He insisted that we tell the truth about who we are and what we have done," says Glaude, "that we put aside the myths and illusions and understand what white supremacy has done in terms of disfiguring and distorting the character of this nation."
* * * * *
Amid a nationwide reckoning with systemic racism, we speak with Princeton African American studies professor Eddie Glaude, whose new book on James Baldwin offers lessons from the iconic writer for the present. Baldwin, says Glaude, insisted that “we put aside the myths and illusions and understand what white supremacy has done in terms of disfiguring and distorting the character of this nation.” The book is titled “Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own.”
AMYGOODMAN:This isDemocracy Now!I’m Amy Goodman,The Quarantine Report. We’re speaking with professor Eddie Glaude, chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University, his new book, just out,Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own. This is James Baldwin speaking in 1963 about federally backed urban renewal programs.
JAMESBALDWIN:A boy last week — he was 16 — in San Francisco, told me, on television — thank God we got him to talk. Maybe somebody will start to listen. He said, “I’ve got no country, I’ve got no flag.” And he’s only 16 years old. And I couldn’t say, “You do.” I don’t have any evidence to prove that he does. They were tearing down his house, because San Francisco is engaging, as most Northern cities now are engaged, in something called urban renewal, which means moving the Negroes out. It means Negro removal. That is what it means. And the federal government is an accomplice to this fact. Now, this — we’re talking about human beings. There’s not such a thing as a monolithic wall or, you know, some abstraction called the Negro problem. These are Negro boys and girls, who, at 16 and 17, don’t believe the country means anything that it says, and don’t feel they have any place here, on the basis of the performance of the entire country.
AMYGOODMAN:That’s James Baldwin in 1963. 1963 was also the year, as I said, of the Birmingham church bombing, four little girls killed, James Baldwin giving fiery addresses about what this meant. He would eventually leave the United States. Professor Eddie Glaude, he has been the backdrop of your life. Talk about what he represented then and what it means for today.
EDDIEGLAUDE:Well, you know, I’ve been thinking and thinking about James Baldwin for about 30 years. He’s been in my spirit, in my head, the foundation of my scholarly career, in some ways. And what I wanted to do was to think about him as this poet who spoke the truth to our times.
And, you know, Amy, he had to come to terms with the fact that the country turned its back on the Black freedom struggle. He had to come to terms with the fact that the nation, in effect, assassinated Dr. King. And he collapsed after 1968, and he had to pick up the pieces.
So what I wanted to do was to walk with James Baldwin as he, in some ways, grappled with his moment of betrayal, and find the resources for us in our moment, as we’re grappling with our own moment of betrayal. And what I’ve learned is that he spoke truth. He spoke truth. He insisted that the nation confront the lie, the illusions that protect its so-called innocence. And that became the basis of writing this book in this moment in which Trumpism overdetermines so much of our lives.
